erp for jewelry

We are manufacturing and exporting jewellery from India. There are about 250 people on role and the turnover is just under USD 10 million.

India is the largest supplier of diamonds in the world. Out of a total export of USD 12.0 billion of Gem and jewellery items, diamonds contribute 9.0 billion, jewellery 2.5 and rest 0.5 billion. Besides export, there is a huge growing demand locally.

There is a conscious plan to supply diamonds in the form of jewellery rather than loose. Already, in the year 2003, the export of jewellery grew 60% over 2002. This trend is expected to continue over the next three years.

New factories are starting on a weekly basis in many parts of the country, especially in and around seepz, jaipur, Surat and Calcutta with an average of about 150 people each.

We are in search of a reputed ERP solution that would grow with us for the next few years and could become a standard for this industry.

Recently, Tanishq Jewelry did an evaluation. Some of the key
requirements for them were dual units of measure and catch weight. After
a fair bit of evaluation, they selected Oracle as the ERP solution.

I know of several large Jewelry Manufacturers in the US and abroad who
have chosen Microsoft Business Solutions - Navision and the Jewelry
Add-On Granule from Labyrinth Business Solutions (www.lbsus.com).

Hi Snevati,
The ERP packages for jewelry industry would need to be country specific. It
is unlikely that some of the branded packages, would have been customized
for the Indian environment. It might be cost effective to pool the
requirements under the umbrella of a trade association, or a cooperative and
get a vertical solution developed. I give below some suggestions for doing
that, based upon my significant experience of IT in the Indian and global
environments:

1. Labor has been, and continues to be cheap relative to capital equipment
and computers. Favoring manual systems, or selective computerization, in
departmental silos, for inventory, payroll or accounting systems.

2. Existing processes have typically evolved from the socialist era, with
industrial licensing and controls. Few firms have looked at their
organization structures and business processes from an end-user/customer
perspective, to slash cycle times and costs. Even without IT or ERP, just a
rational study and streamlining of processes can create significant savings.
This could be largely done by in-house teams, with education and training
and some facilitation from BPR/ERP practitioners. This takes time, and
management attention. But if done well creates a climate/culture for change,
and also allay the fears of becoming redundant.

3.Over staffing is rampant. Layoffs require (or used to require), government
sanction, and union opposition. Besides it creates undesirable
management/staff friction. Cost justifying ERP upon reduced labor cost is
not a very good strategy.

4. The penetration of IT and computers is scant. Many in-house developed
systems exist, but they typically are not integrated or process driven.

5. Widely used solutions, like SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, QAD, Navision, Great
Plains etc., are difficult to cost justify. They also do not typically
cater to peculiar Indian taxation requirements like Excise, State and
Central Sales tax or Modvat. As such these packages would need a fair amount
of customization.

6. The cost per man-hour of IT resources, in India is a fraction of what it
costs in the US , for example.

7. It is a challenge to change the processes, in the business, to map to the
processes built into an ERP package. So customization will be required.
Which reduces the advantages of built-in processes of the package, and adds
to the project cost. Besides it tends to lock you into the current version
of the package, as porting the customizations is costly and time consuming.

8. In light of the above issues, follow the APICS approach, USA= Understand,
Streamline and THEN Automate. For the automation, ask the ERP Vendors to
show the process maps of their package, and compare them to your processes.
Open Source is changing the software scene. Keep an open mind to Open Source
ERP/CRM, especially if it maps to your processes and has good tools to
configure/extend it. It will also make your projects more affordable.

9. Do not rush into the automation phase, unless you have created the
necessary buy-in for the changed processes. Hardware costs will only
decline. It is also better to have a few processes/modules implemented,
before making a big bang implementation. The staff released can be well used
for the next process, for the training, coding and creating/migrating the
data, and getting the people to own the data and the processes.

10. Another thread, in this newsgroup has talked about Open Source ERP/CRM
projects. You might want to refer to it.

Ebizframe is an ERP product developed by Eastern Software Systems Ltd .ESS hit the news when they launched an ERP few years back for the SME segment. Today, we are one of the leading providers of ERP solution in India and we offer best of the benefits of Enterprise Automation, all at an affordable price.

ESS is a company funded by CITIBANK and INTEL. We have attained one of the toughest standards - CMM Level 5 - for a software development company. I am happy to inform you that we have acquired a very sizable presence in India. Today, we can boast of over 285+-client base all over India and Globe. We have successfully tackled, different industry segments like Chemical, Pharma, Jewellery, Garments, Textiles, Agro, Engineering, Auto-ancillaries, Plastics etc.

With our experience of nearly 8 years as a dedicated ERP software service provider, and attaining CMM Level 5, we can assure you of a successful implementation within a reasonably short period. Talking of jewellery I find it pertinent to mention that we have even customized our erp to typical jewellery requirements We have also developed a POS which has been successfully implemented in companies having retail jewellery operations as well. Our experience in the lines similar to yours also means minimum customization may be required It may be more in MIS reporting, which can be unique to individual organizations.

If you could give us an appointment or pass on the contact details , we can also share with you some reports from similar industries to give you and your team a better idea about the software.
Thanking you and looking forward for your response

The only ERP package as far as I know, what has a locatization for the
indian tax regime is SSA/Baan, because of their indian development hub.
They do have a lot of customers on the Indian subcontinent.
Stong points are manufacturing features and india features and a support
organization in India.
Downside is the brandname in the ERP business.
But that may be to oversized for your company, for that we need to know
more of your business processes. I do not know if other ERP vendors who
have developers in India also have build an indian localization.

The discussions on this thread do have suggested Oracle financials for you which is definitely a good package to be considered for your industry.
We have done many erp implementation in India for SAP as well as abroad. We are vendor independent company and specialises in ERP implementation primarily. Oracle Financials, SAP & 3e solutions are our main forte.

I would like to just know where r u based out of and if required we can definitely help u in identifying the correct solution as well as implementation at your organisation.You can also contact us directly.

I find ERP for jewelry difficult - I tried to do it for a friend and much
had to be custom written. Jewelry prices based on the price of gold or
another precious metal and a formula. Most ERP's don't support a variable
raw material price effecting the price of existing finished goods.

Based on number of posts indicating good jewelry industry would strong
suggest you change your mind set.
Try to not customize at all.
Packages mentioned BAAN, People Soft, Oracle are all good companies and have
strong bases in India. I also know that QAD is a strong player in India
with excellent financial localizations, but not sure about Jewelry Industry
specifics - may or may not be a fit.

There are also several local Indian firms with good offerings from what I
have heard on this site over the years, but I have not used any of them.

Try to use the system you chose as written with its best business practices
for 4 - 6 months if you still think you need customization do it then. Use
manual work arounds if you think you need them. Usually 75% of what you
think needs to be changed doesn't and 20% that you think you can't do with
the software you will discover a way that works. That leaves you with only
5% of the changes you would have done during the implementation.

Also the comments from one of the respondents about changing business
processes was well stated. However, I strongly disagree with his ideas of
developing software in house. In house development will tend to keep you
stuck in the business practices you currently are using. Business process
change is where you will get the pay back on the project. Labor rates will
continue rise rapidly over the next several years due to the success of
India's In-Sourcing - USA's Out-Sourcing. Those Indian businesses that have
adapted flexibility through best business practices will I think be those
that survive as much of the low labor cost work moves to Thailand and
Indonesia.

Steve is right. Its little difficult to find solution addressing the
vertical needs. The only solution which I remember is "Jewelmesh"
developed by Intramesh Information Technology, Haryana. I don't know
much about the product, but you can visit http://www.jewelmesh.com for
more details on their product and see if it suits your requirements.

I'm from VDS-Computing, a company based in Belgium, but we work very close together with eXegeSys in Salt Lake City, Utah, and with Insoft in Chennai, India.

We can offer an ERP application (Piton/eXegetic Resource Planning), that, in my opinion, should fit completely for what you are looking for.

A very strong feature of the manufacturing part of the application is the level that it can be customized. Whatever customizations you make to the application, you'll stay under full support, and it remains possible to install new upgrades without losing the customizations you made.

The financial part of the application fits completely within the Indian accounting rules.

The application is already used by Indian companies.

Insoft in India is not only a dealer of the application, but they also develop, as subcontractor for VDS-Computing, and eXegeSys, a part of the application.

You can contact Insoft for more information: Contact information from Insoft:

Hi , It is good statistics. Why not you try SAP . You can call their India
office and let them give their
presentaion" why SAP" . I will strongly suggest for SAP only because this is
only going to be futuristic ERP than others.

We went through demos by a couple of ERP value adders and found that
many of the ideas are better than what we are doing. However, quite a
few are less than acceptable as is.

A few of the points are:

1) The raw materials are natural, not man made, with each piece and lot
being different in terms of the color, weight, cut, clarity, etc.
2) Using this varying raw material, the customer, especially American,
expects us to be accurate and standardized in terms of price, weight and
look of the article in repeat orders, even 10 months in future.
3) The prices of raw materials, both metals and stones vary on a day to
day or month to month intervals.
4) Payment is payable when able if able.
5) Goods may be bought on full returnable or part returnable basis.
6) There is very little automization and people skills and moods
determine the productivity and quality.
7) Inventory and security of raw materials is extremely important.
8) Continuous, not Continual development of new designs and many
warranting newer and better processes is the order of the day, leaving
little scope of standard time determination of a process.
9) The order size can vary from 1 to 100,000 of a style.

The very culture is traditional and ancient, going against the
expectations many young people who work with software.

Every point you mention I could come up with a work around using most
standard ERP packages.
Also, I am sure that most of the customizations that you refer to have
already been done by one of the packages people have purposed.
Others can be managed manually. Labor after all is cheap there.
You can then determine which of those processes really are important and
need customization.

Why not Customization????????
1. It takes time to customize. The cost of delaying project benefits
usually far outweighs the benefits of the customizations.
2. Most customizations are found to not be needed over time.
3. Most customizations are really not cost justified. They get bundled into
the overall project cost because they are someone's pet requirement.
4. Many customizations are never actually used. Either they done badly and
don't fit the requirement or they really weren't needed. The standard
product has a better solution that just requires education.
5. Customizations limit your ability to take future upgrades to the system
and increase maintenance overhead.
6. The inability to quickly use new software upgrades and their best
business benefits can put you at a competitive disadvantage in the future.

For those who are considering OPEN Source all of the above apply.

If you have a 6 - 9 month ROI on a well done ERP implementation of standard
software and it takes you 12 months of design and code an OPEN Source
solution your 'free' software cost you 3 months of project benefits and you
have a system which locks you in to constantly trying to keep up with the
big software houses in terms of keeping current with best business
practices. Unless software development is your core competency you are
wasting time that could be used to expand your business defining software
that has already been written by someone else. Never seemed like a wise
business decision.

Have you ever heard of Ramco Systems? Its headquarters is located in India
and I noted that you would like to work with a group who has "roots" in
India. A medical wire manufacturer, in the US, had Ramco Systems come in as
one of the vendors to do a demo of their ERP solution. It appeared to be
able to handle most of the critical criteria, such as the ability to assign
attributes (such as the color, cut, clarity, weight of the diamond that you
mentioned) to the raw as well as the finished inventory. Tracking of the
raw material, processing ops, etc. was critical due to FDA regulations for
this company and the system seemed to handle those really well.

This system has also been implemented by Boeing Corporation in the US - for
tracking inventory associated with helicopter/airplane production as well as
maintenance. Most companies have found that they can use this solution
without customizing it; however, if a customization is required, the
resources needed to either produce the customization or to assist a client
are available. I know that they have personnel available in India who could
assist you if you needed help.

Ramco appears to be a well-diversified industrial conglomerate. The group
has become one of India's most respected business groups, achieving
international recognition for its quality products and services The group
seems to be one of the most efficiently managed Indian business houses due
to their track record of high and consistent profitability so they appear to
be a very solid company and which should not be "fading or selling" any time
in the near future.

They are a global provider of personalized enterprise solutions that close
the gap between companies' IT capabilities and business objectives. What
sets Ramco apart is the internal capability to assemble applications using
Ramco VirtualWorks™, a groundbreaking, model-based development and delivery
platform that enables the assembly of personalized applications that address
an enterprise’s unique, best and next business practices.

Their website is www.ramco.com. Please do not misunderstand - I am neither
advocating or trying to solicite a sell. I am not associated with this
product or organization at all. I am only suggesting that you might want to
look at this system and especially since they are headquartered in India.

I hope that you find this information helpful. Best of success on your
finding a solution that will be a good "fit" for your company. Please feel
free to email me with any questions you may have. Again, I am only
suggesting you look at this system.

I will be glad to answer a few theoretical questions with general answers, but any decent ERP consultant there in India should be able to do the same for you - giving you specific answers.
Regarding data validation:
1. One of the strong suites of having a standard ERP system is a standard set of master files against which all entries are validated. Customers, vendors, part numbers, work centers, etc.
2. Most ERP packages allow you to define a values table to any field in the system.

3. Most ERP packages allow you to create attributes for just about everything in the system and valid entries for those attributes.
4. The real key to valid input is Poko-Yoko - making sure that it is almost impossible to make a mistake. This combined with quality at the source efforts can yield six sigma results in data entry.

5. As and example I consider any company with inventory records are less than 99.9% accurate (right quantity, right location, right lot or serial number and right product status) to be from prior era. Unfortunately few companies actually take data accuracy seriously so most plants I visit are lucky to have 85% accuracy.

Have you been able to find out what software your major competitors are using? Trade magazines are usually a good source of information.

Hi,
I agree with Bill Ban Looy totally. It would be prudence to go for a
standard package and try to fit the requirements around that ERP.
it is what we call the fitment of the requirements with the product.
As far as the jewellery and diamond industry is considered usually the
problems arise due to the dual unit of mesurements and the BOM issues where
one diamond breaks into smaller diamonds.
As per my knowledge JDE and Oralce Apps have some implementations in this
vertical.
If you need further details please contact me.

I agree completely with Bill that customization takes, with most applications a lot of time, and that, with these applications, it takes a lot of time to install upgrades. In some cases you also have to make changes to the source code.

This is completely different from our customizer tool:

- We don't allow our customers to change the source code.
- All our customizations are made via the customizer tool, and are kept within a dictionary data base. Most customizations can be made within a reasonable period of time.
- This allows us to give full support on the customized application. This is different from some of our competitors, who don't support customized applications.
- This also allows us to install new version without touching the customizations made via our customizer. I have a lot of experience with our application, also with the older versions, and I have never seen an upgrade that took more than 5 days. Most upgrades were even much faster than this, and took less than a day.

But I also agree with Bill that a lot of companies made customizations that are not necessary, and that are almost never used. You have to define what you have to customize, and if you need these changes, before customizing the application.

But our (unique?) customizer also gives you the opportunity to:

- Have a responsive organization instead of a frozen process.
- To concentrate your efforts on your business challenges, instead of IT projects.
- To have a different process than your competitor, and to differentiate from your competitor.
- To customize the application to your unique needs, instead of matching your processes to the application.

And this all without compromising future support, and with a smooth upgrade process.

I don't know all companies using our applications (we have customers in the whole world). But looking to the needs that were mentioned in earlier mails, I know that we have these features in our application.

This does not mean that I say that we have or not have to customize the application. This all depends on the wishes from our customer. I wrote an answer to another mail from you about customizing.

Sorry this is still not what I consider to be a fit. You wouldn't make my
short list based your posts.

Sounds like you are using best software development practices for creating
custom solutions, but someone still has to maintain the mods, review and
test for each new release. Done well not a major hassle, but still hassle
and cost drain.
Regards,

Sorry for jumping into this thread late (been out the country). Are you
looking for an ERPII solution that handles the specifics of the jewelry
industry - that can actually provide reference customers?

Check out the infor: com product. A quick check shows at least 4
reference customers in the jewelry manufacturing sector.

Website - www.inforinc.ca - check under the tab: solutions - industry
solutions - jewellry. Gives a very high level overview. Give me a call
if you want to know more.

This has been a rather long thread. I jumped in late myself.
Key topics where standard ERP for jewelry vertical versus
a shell ERP that would be modified or
written custom code
or working with an ERP vendor to have the joys of being their beta site and
getting everything that goes with that night mare.

Check the archives and then jump in I am sure you will have some interesting
insights for the originator.
Regards,